Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Enter: The M8

On Tuesday, March 1st, 2011, a milestone was reached in railroad history. The M8, the newest railcar on MTA property, entered service after months of rigorous testing. At 10:30 a.m., the eight-car consist bound for Grand Central Terminal departed Stamford, Connecticut, and would eventually leave at 2:10 that afternoon from GCT to Stamford.

A lot of my friends had already received the details the night before...gotta give them credit for the goods. Within hours as the day started, photos of the new railcars already started surfacing the web. On my facebook page, M8 talk was sweeping across my wall feed as if the cars were already due or retirement (ha!). All in all, we all waited, and the wait was indeed worthwhile. I was caught off-guard alright, but hell, let the foamers have their fun, life is short so what the hell?...

here's a schedule you guys should find useful:

  • The train will depart from New Haven at 6:24 a.m. and arrive at Grand Central Terminal at 8:06 a.m. (It won't be stopping in Darien, but if you commute from Stamford, it's the 7:16 a.m.)
  • Next, it will make an empty trip to Harrison, N.Y. and return to Grand Central again at 9:15 a.m. The train will stay there during the day for the railroad to train engineers and conductors in its use.
  • Finally, it will leave Grand Central at 4:07 p.m. and arrive in New Haven at 5:54 p.m. (passing through Stamford at 4:52 p.m.).
The 4:07 p.m. train out of Grand Central Terminal to New Haven today was an M8. Tomorrow and Friday will be the same. For those who haven't gotten their photos of the M8s in their first day of service, you can settle for the next best thing and acquire photos of the M8s in their first week of service by heading to GCT tomorrow. Since I didn't have time to get my photos of the M8s on Tuesday (and also to avoid foamers), I'll be heading to Grand Central terminal tomorrow afternoon with a friend of mine to get my photos in.


I guess this makes my first post for the ETU Blog. Sad to mention though...I haven't even bought the domain for my website yet...oh well, not to worry. I'm definitely gonna get on top of that next week, that's for sure. Until then, I'll post the photos to my photobucket page and link them here. Thanks for reading!

--ETU